Update 7:45 PM ET:As predicted, the beta app has now been unpublished from the Store

After the dust has settled with the Preview of Windows Phone 8.1, early adopters are noticing quite a few changes, some of which are causing some speed bumps. For instance, Twitter. The app works quite well on 8.1, but the ability to Share to the app has disappeared and it doesn’t fully leverage the capabilities of the 8.1 operating system.

The beta build of the app is circulating in an open beta, though it's sure to be closed now that it has leaked publicly. Regardless, here’s what to expect in Twitter for Windows Phone 8.1...

Unfortunately, the Live Tile is not transparent, yet, though there’s still time before release where that can be added. There’s no word on when the next version of Twitter for Windows Phone 8.1 will go live, but this build looks pretty polished.

You can find the link to the Store for the beta here, though we imagine that the beta will go private once this news gets out. [App is no longer available]

@astroXP The people who grabbed the WhatsApp Beta when it was "open" absolutely 100% did not continue to get updates. That's impossible because the next day the Store link changed. Unless the dev team had your email address, you wouldn't know that or the new, now Private, Store link.

Apparently it's too damn hard to ask for a Twitter app that'll keep it's position when I hit the button to load more tweets. I've only ever seen rowi do that, but it started being kinda weird for me not too long after they had to drop support.

Hey, thanks for the tip. Its working on my phone and was able to post an update via the me tile (of course it opens the twitter beta app when i chose it) However, i notice something i have been truly wanting from the people hub.... it now allows you to show only those contacts with phone numbers! Oh God it's a joy!!!!!

But the photos are inline in the People Hub which is pretty sweet. I was a little worried about the People Hub but with the new integration options in the API, I think the People Hub could be pretty incredible.

I was pretty excited when I opened the Photos Hub and saw Twitter as an option but it only shows your own pictures which I find pretty useless. It would be amazing if it showed all the pictures of the people that you follow and the ones posted on your timeline.

Faster is relative, imho. I think this needs to be an option.. Allow the API integration INTO the unified messaging and unified notifications, while also allowing you to go the other way if you like. Non-threaded msgs are annoying and disjointed. Yah the notification center is nice, but why should we be forced into the specific app? If its a matter of the infrastructure required to access and serve up to the phone, then let the app take that place and feed unified hub if the user wants. I just don't see a downside or limitation.

So I need to have twitter installed so that I can share now? I'm not sure yet but I'm pretty sure I liked how the hub worked before better. Especially with the me hub having everything I wanted to see in one place. And being able to comment on my posts it reply without launching an app.

Agree with this. I would hate it if every developer jumped on the bandwagon and starts making their tiles transparent. I'm ok if they make it optional, but don't force it on us. I doubt these big companies will just forget about their branding though. Besides, there are always third party apps that can fill this gap.

This app sucks. Just like FB, now we need to open the app to reply, instead of directly doing so from within the people hub.... I really hate the new way WP works with social networks.... (unless I'm missing something...)

I dislike having to go to an app as well. But, unfortunately, it had to go in order to accommodate more apps and faster updates. At least it's still somewhat more centralized than the other platforms...

No I disagree that it has to be this way for faster updates etc. The API could still function the same way. Obviously the apps are feeding the notification center. It didn't bother me too much that the integration was basic - that's all it had to be. It could still be rich integration as well - just give the option to open in app just like notification center does now.

Hate is a mild word for how I feel about it. The rapid, seamless sharing was what Microsoft promoted hugely about Windows Phone, and was a pleasure to use. Tap boom, that photo flew up off the screen and you were done, with people tagged just as quickly. This is nothing more than what Android or iOS do. Big freakin deal, and thanks for nothing.

I guess the hub concept is not that dead. In fact, it is much better since any third party apps can essentail access the hub. I mean people and picture integration is seamingly accessble. I guess I will just hope that the hub is actuallh prettier.

You have to consider not everyone likes transparant tiles. The WPC staff talks as if every dev out there is going for transparancy asap. Choice is best but I van understand hoe devs want to keep the identity of the service clear by defaulting the app's signature style in the tile.

I said extra app/tap, which still stands in 8.1 unfortunately. there is no direct posting and it goes against the whole smoked by windows phone campaign, (which was a great selling point). now it's no faster than the other platforms at doing the same

With 8.0 when I wanted to "like" or comment on facebook\reply to tweet etc. I could do it from within the feed. I can't find a way to do so on 8.1... Am I missing something ? For me, its a step backwards.

I typically agree with you Maletesta but I can't ride with you on this one. Having it built into the OS made it fast and easy to use. Relying on an app, an app they have no control over when it gets updated & usually gets updated months later than other OS's, is not a good strategy to me. It also completely breaks the OS UX and kills the consistency with Windows 8 where I can still post to FB and Twitter from the people app without going to another app.

I agree 100% here. I thought and was hoping it would remain because you can still do everything from the people hub on W8.1. Losing the integration bugs me... brings WP down to where other OS's are IMO.

I'm currently using it to to have black tiles by setting a solid color as the background iamge, but I don't want every tile to be black. the pops of color are important.

I really hope devs realize that there is major value in an app promoting its own color branding. people have pointed out that Xbox Music and other MS apps like OneDrive don't support transparency. well, that's because they've never supported theme colors. now that people are raving about transparency, it could benefit devs to make their apps support themes & transparency, but I hope apps will allow users to disable transparency and themes

Boy am I had I got this. New ways of interacting: Touch the text to see the tweet and decide from twitter app how to interact, touch the picture to see the picture directly in the Twitter app, or touch the reply button to go directly to responding to the twitter handles in the tweet

It's the little things that I miss. Like being able to share items to facebook and have them actually parse links correctly. Or having to reinstall the original fb app. Glad there is time in beta for everything to catch up.

This is kind of related, so Dan please don't delete me. Anybody noticed on the Me Tile the Twitter image is higher quality than Facebook one? Well my Facebook one switches between high quality and low. Didn't bag the Twitter beta so don't know if it would have suffered too.